Transparency International Sri Lanka branch Executive Director S. Ranugge yesterday said there was a large scale abuse of public property by the UPFA government to boost incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign in the run up to the Presidential election in violation of the election laws.
"A letter of demand would be sent by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka to the relevant parties," Ranugge said.
Transparency International had received 170 complaints from the public so far about such incidents, Ranuge said, adding that there was evidence to back those claims.
Addressing a news conference at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute Ranugge said, among those were distribution of goods and money as election bribes, use of state funds to publish advertisements, large-scale use of SLTB buses, misuse of state media, government officials participating in election campaigning, amalgamation of Sri Lanka Youth with 'Tharunye Hetak' and the use of the military for campaigning purposes,
"Thirty seven per cent of government buildings, 18 per cent of state officials, seven of state funds, 14 per cent of vehicles owned by state institutions had been used by the ruling party in the campaign work of Mahinda Rajapaksa and 23 per cent of such violations have taken place in the Colombo district with 20 per cent in the Batticaloa District, 19 per cent in Galle and 16 per cent in Kandy."
White cloth had been given to devotees observing sil at a cost of Rs. 1,000 million using state funds and already Rs. 40 million had been paid to a private company responsible for providing the material, he said. The programme had been implemented through Buddhist temples, Ranuge said.
Mobile phones had been given to pensioners free of charge under the 'Kala Guna' scheme but senior citizens had turned down the offer as the they could not afford the package, yet phones had been given away, the Transparency International Executive Director said.
Newspaper advertisements had been published commenting on the purported benefits enjoyed by the masses in a manner which would only benefit Presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa and that amounted to a violation of election laws, he claimed.
"Each of these full colour advertisements would cost around Rs. 250,000 and funds for the advertisements would come from the supplementary budget government is planning to propose, Ranugge alleged.
Among the other blatant violation of election laws was deploying of over 100 SLTB buses to transport people for a political rally, he said.
"Students sitting the GCE O/L examination had been affected as a result of buses being taken away to transport people for the election rally and on the other hand the full amount of monies due to the SLTB for hiring the buses had not been paid, he said .
The state television particularly the Eye Channel, radio and newspapers were 100 per cent biased towards Rajapaksa while Defence Secretary and the President's Secretary whose salaries were paid by the Consolidated Fund were highly biased and employees of the Road Development Authority were used to paste posters of President Rajapaksa, Ranugge said.
The police had been ordered to do all the dirty work in the political campaign on behalf of President Rajapaksa, he added.
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Families of security forces personnel had been sent 200,000 letters and 30,000 pamphlets supporting the candidature of Mahinda Rajapaksa for which Postal Department had used Rs. 5.5 million worth postage stamps at the expense of the taxpayers, he said.
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